This February, the 68th annual Grammy Awards took place in Los Angeles, bringing together some of the biggest names in the music industry for a night of performances, awards, and headline-making moments. Hosted by the comedian Trevor Noah, this year the Grammys were at the height of their spectacle.
Key Winners:
This Grammy was filled with many nominees and winners. Some of the most significant ones include:
Album of the year – Debe tirar mas fotos (Bad Bunny). This was a notable moment because it marked a huge win for the Latin music community, highlighting their newfound global power.
Best new artist – Olivia Dean. This win was special due to her genre-blending of pop and R&B. She also became the first British artist to win this category in the last seven years.
Record of the year – “luther” – Kendrick Lamar (with SZA). Lamar was the first male artist and first rapper to win the category back-to-back, winning for “Not Like Us” in 2025.
Song of the year – “WILDFLOWER” – Billie Eilish. Eilish was the youngest to achieve this award, making it a landmark victory.
Memorable performances:
Justin Bieber (‘YUKON’). Bieber made an iconic return to the stage after being away for almost 4 years due to health problems. His performance was iconic, raw, and stripped-down (literally..). He sang in his underwear and used only a guitar, a pedal, and a recording box, making it a “raw”, “unfiltered”, “intimate”, and “authentic” show.
Tyler, the Creator (‘Thought I was Dead’, ‘Sugar On My Tongue’). Tyler had an unconventional and innovative performance, choosing it to be high-concept and immersive. He transformed the stage into a suburban neighbourhood, featuring a staged car crash and a gas station set, making it theatrical as well.
Alex Warren (‘Ordinary’). Warren had strength and perseverance this Grammy, when he experienced an in-ear monitor malfunction. He navigated through this by finishing the song professionally, instead of stopping or panicking.
Key Moments:
The Grammys this year had so many hilarious, memorable, and shocking moments this year, like when Trevor Noah called out Nicki Minaj on the fact she wasn’t at the Grammys and still with Donald Trump in the white house “discussing very important issues”. Or when Trevor Noah was so eager to hear Bad Bunny, even when he couldn’t, due to a contract with the NFL that prevented him from performing before the Super Bowl. So, Trevor Noah performed DTMF for him with his own mariachi band, trying to tempt Bad Bunny into singing with him, but Bad Bunny resisted and later performed a great halftime show at the Super Bowl.
Later on in the evening, there was a tribute led by Lauryn Hill for the two late singers Roberta Flack and D’angelo. Roberta Flack sadly passed away at the age of 88 from a disease. And D’Angelo was killed in a car crash at the age of 51. In their memory, a number of artists performed some of their songs.
Outfits that caught eyes:
Chappel Roan came in a dress that received an extremely mixed reaction. She arrived in a dark red dress, which revealed her entire upper chest. Some people thought it was far too revealing, while others thought it was beautiful and saw no problem with it since it was within the Grammy’s outfit guidelines. Chappel Roan later explained that she chose her outfit because it “made her feel confident”, and she thought it was beautiful, and not to test the limits of how revealing she could be.
Fans also picked up that it looked like Bad Bunny was wearing a bulletproof vest underneath his tux due to a fear of getting shot; however, this is just a rumour online, and the bulkiness was likely just due to structured tailoring.
And finally, a man arrived at the Grammys wearing a black reflective mask that completely covered his face. There were assumptions that it was Gesaffelstein, an electronic music producer and DJ, since it was his signature style and he was known for wearing masks. Later on, these rumours were confirmed when he arrived on stage to claim his award for Best Remixed Recording for his remix of Lady Gaga’s song “Abracadabra”.
What this year’s winners say about genre/music trends:
As music advances, hip-hop can still be seen everywhere we go. We can clearly see this, as the American rapper and songwriter Kendrick Lamar won five awards. Some of these are best rap album, best rap song, best melodic rap performance, along with many more. These five were the most Grammys ever presented to a rapper, leaving Lamar as one of the distinguished rappers of our time. This can highlight how hip-hop went from being a dismissed music genre to being hugely commercially successful and critically acclaimed, gaining respect from the Recording Academy. This year, as expected, Pop has a strong presence in music. We see how performances have started to lean towards highly produced performances. Singers like Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter present their music alongside extensive choreography, planned skits, and numerous costume changes. Crows tend to enjoy staged, thoughtfully rehearsed performances rather than natural, spontaneous entertainment. Moreover, when we look to the future of the music industry, we see a massive shift towards more global records. With Latin music making a huge impact and entering top charts, the music industry is leaning towards opening its doors to a wider variety of music and not only sticking to English records. Bad Bunny winning album of the year shows this clearly, and is hopefully the start to a more open evaluation of music as a whole.
In the end, the Grammys showed advancement in the music industry and allowed us to see different trends and genres that artists are following. The Grammys gave us varied performances, sophisticated outfits, and unforgettable moments. Now all we can do is wait eagerly for the next one.